Nine days ahead of the night of the 2020 NBA Draft, the Chicago Bulls could have a clearer idea of what they’ll do in the lottery.
There was some really intriguing insight that was presented for the current thought process for the Chicago Bulls new front office regime early this week. On a recent episode of “The Lowe Post Podcast” with ESPN’s Zach Lowe, the prospect of a hierarchy of importance for pieces of the Bulls young core if they form a trade to move up in the 2020 NBA Draft.
Although it wasn’t Lowe that had the insight into the Bulls front office situation right now, and who they feel like they would part ways with first on draft night (if that were to happen). It was ESPN’s NBA insider Jonathan Givony that had the insight on this situation.
Givony mentioned that the Bulls front office could be higher on the seven-footer and former Arizona Wildcats power forward Lauri Markkanen than they are the former Duke Blue Devils center Wendell Carter Jr. in a potential draft night trade scenario. There’s no guarantee that the Bulls try to move up or down in the draft lottery come the night of Nov. 18, but executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas hasn’t ruled anything out either.
It would seem that the two subjects of most of the trade speculation heading into draft night are Markkanen and WCJ. That could mean that those two are more commonly discussed in trade talks than the likes of shooting guard Zach LaVine and point guard Coby White, but that is all speculation too.
Moreover, this particular discussion between Lowe and Givony did speculate about the possibility of the Bulls using Carter Jr. as a trade chip to move up into the top slot in this draft lottery. That would mean that the Bulls try to formulate some trade deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves to take over the first overall pick in the 2020 draft.
The Bulls finished up the shortened 2019-20 regular season in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic with a record of 22-43 under the direction of former head coach Jim Boylen, good for 11th place in the Eastern Conference standings. They now have a largely retooled front office and coaching staff heading into the 2020-21 season.